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Human Rights Conference Features Three Genocide Survivors

Gary Band
Jewish Journal Staff

PEABODY — The 17th annual Human Rights Awareness Conference at Peabody High School — sponsored by the Holocaust Center and attended by 800 students from nine north of Boston high schools — featured testimonials from survivors of three acts of genocide: the Cambodians, the Tutsi Tribe of Rwanda, and European Jewry.

According to Holocaust Center Executive Director Harriet Wacks, “We thought there was a need to bring the knowledge of these atrocities to life by hearing eyewitness accounts from those who experienced what most people only read about in history books.”
Sayon Souen, 38, lived through the Cambodian Genocide of 1975-79 when 1.7 million people, or 21 percent of the population, were murdered in the “killing fields” or worked to death by the Khmer Rouge regime headed by Pol Pot. Though Pot and his 35,000 fighters were eventually ousted by Vietnamese forces in January 1979, Pot’s vision of transforming the country into a Marxist agrarian society led to the virtual extermination of the country’s technical and professional class.

Separated from his family in 1974, Souen never saw them again. “By this time I was made to work like an animal,” Souen said, “10 to 11 hours with only one meal a day. Uneducated and poor people were brought into the idea of a perfect war and society that would end with no class and no religion.”

Souen said that he and the hundreds of other children he was grouped with would wake up everyday listening to government propaganda. ‘Everything you have is because of us. Trust no one. Report any negative talk about the government. If not, you will be killed.’

In addition to working in the fields, Souen said he was also being trained as a soldier, firing and taking apart and putting back together M-16s and AK-47s. One day a week he and others were brought to the slave labor camps and torture chambers, where, if he were to show any emotion “I would be killed.”

While marching in formation and carrying weapons with a group of other teenagers in 1979, Souen said he and the others managed to escape. In 1980 he was placed in a refugee camp in Thailand, and in 1983 was adopted through a Christian group by a family in Lowell where he grew up. “It was a great family that adopted me,” he said.

Though not speaking a word of English for most of his high school years, Souen was unhappy and in and out of trouble. Eventually he got on the right track and now works with at-risk youth.

Ernest Rugwizangonga, 29, is a survivor of the mass murder of 800,000 Tutsi Tribe members at the hands of the Hutus in Rwanda in 1994. Though he is a Tutsi, Ernest says he never knew until 1990 when he was 15 and the trouble began. He said before then, ordinary Hutus (farmers) and Tutsis (merchants) lived in harmony.

Under Belgian rule from 1918-62, Tutsi dominance gave way to an encouragement for power sharing by the Belgian government. But ethnic tensions later led to civil war forcing many Tutsis into exile.

After the downing of an aircraft in April 1994, which was carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, both of whom died, violence erupted with the Hutus killing an estimated 800,000 Tutsi civilians. It is believed the plane was shot down by Hutu extremists who rejected the proposed Hutu-Tutsi power-sharing plan.

Following a 14-week civil war, Tutsi rebels forced an estimated 1.7 million Hutus to cross into neighboring Zaire creating an international crisis. A series of United Nations tribunals followed that sentenced a former Rwandan prime minister to life in prison along with eight others who had a role in the genocide. Paul Kagame, the first Tutsi president of Rwanda, was installed in April, 2000.

But before this measure of order was restored, at the age of 15, Ernest came home to find his uncle was imprisoned and later their house destroyed as he and his seven siblings ran in different directions from the violence engulfing their once peaceful town.
Ernest found a Hutu family to hide with who later brought him to a school where others were hiding. He later learned that his older brother and younger sister had been killed. After three years of “poverty and trauma” and considerable trouble getting a visa, Ernest was sponsored by an American family and arrived in the United States. He lived first in Manchester, NH, then for six years in Lowell, and now in Boston. A sister of his lives with him, and he too works with at-risk youth.

He visited Rwanda — where his mother and five surviving brothers and sisters still live — in 2002. He says even though things are much better, there was still a lot of “tension and hopelessness.” Like the Marshall plan that helped Europe rebuild after WWII, Ernest wishes a similar plan could be enacted to help Rwanda rebuild. In the meantime, he keeps in touch with and hopes to bring the rest of his family to America soon.

Joseph Matzner is a Holocaust survivor. Born in Poland, he was a young man on the eve of Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, in 1938, when the Nazis came out in force against the Jewish community in Germany. Matzner stressed that Hitler did not come to power through violence, but was democratically elected.

“Despite his writing of Mein Kampf in while in prison 1918, less than 20 years later, Hitler organized a political party and convinced people to vote for him. In 1934, one year after he was elected chancellor, he established the concentration camp Dachau 15 miles from Munich where the Nazi party put people who disagreed with their policies, mostly Gypsies and Jews. Most German people went along with what Hitler was doing or looked the other way.”

Matzner said he and his family tried to escape Poland but were forced to return in 1939 and soon after resettled in the Krakow Ghetto. In April of 1942, at around 2 a.m. there was knock at his family’s door. Outside, Matzner said he heard shots and knew something terrible was going on. His father was taken and along with 50 others killed in front of their building.

Although he, his mother and sister were spared, and his sister later escaped but soon returned to tell of the mass murders taking place, she and their mother were later killed. Matzner was sent to the concentration camp where Schindler’s List took place.

Surviving a serious leg injury by operating on himself, then the selection at Auschwitz, and finally a 180-mile forced march, Matzner was finally liberated from a small camp in February 1945.

An aunt of his had survived, and after four years of living in Germany, he came to New York and later moved to Lowell where he lived for 30 years. Married, he and his wife had two children, and now two grandchildren. “I’m very lucky to be alive,” Matzner says. “But it is up to all of you in this room to make sure nothing like what happened to me, or Ernest, or Sayon ever happens again.”
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Susan Jacobs
Jewish Journal Staff

Charles Toomey was born nine weeks early to a homeless couple who couldn’t care for him. When released from the hospital, he was placed in foster care with the Toomey family of Rowley. The family fell in love with the curly-haired tyke and decided to formally adopt him, a bureaucratic process that takes many months. Although the Toomeys had private health insurance, Charles couldn’t be added on to it until the adoption was finalized. As a foster child, he was covered by Medicaid, known in this state as Mass Health.

Premature newborns like Charles are at high risk for contracting RSV, a virus that causes severe bronchitis, pneumonia and even death. The disease, which is most contagious during the fall and winter months, can be prevented with monthly injections of Synagis®, a sophisticated drug that costs a whopping $1,000 per injection. Infants must be less than six months old in order to receive it.

Due to the expense of the medication, insurance companies and state welfare departments carefully regulate who is eligible to receive it. The national CDC had determined that in the Northeast, RSV outbreaks were most prevalent November through March. As a result, Mass Health only approved the vaccines for at-risk infants who were less than six months old as of November 1. Little Charles, born on April 13, technically missed the deadline by two weeks, and was denied coverage.
Charles’ pediatrician Dr. Richard Lipman believed the medication was vitally important to the at-risk baby. Although the Toomeys were willing to pay for the vaccines out-of-pocket, Lipman felt there was an injustice in his case. Thus, he began a crusade that caused Mass Health to reverse their denial of Charles’ claim, and ultimately change its policy so that other premature newborns could gain access to the shots.

“Practicing physicians in this area know that RSV outbreaks begin before November 1. I contacted four local hospitals and compiled epidemiologic data from 2002-2003 to prove that in our region, RSV outbreaks actually begin in October and end in April. I put together a scientific paper with my documented results and presented it to Mass Health. To their credit, they extended the season, thereby allowing my patient (and countless others across the state) to receive the medication,” said Lipman.

The entire process took the soft-spoken, 69-year-old doctor four months to complete.

“I was so grateful for what he did. I wanted to give him a gift — and considered candy, balloons, flowers or a gift certificate to a restaurant,” said Jeanne Sullivan-Toomey, a retired pediatric physical therapist who also takes her older son Andrew, 8, to Dr. Lipman.

Jeanne’s sister Jennifer thought of nominating Lipman for the Outstanding Achievement Award given annually by the American Academy of Pediatrics. This prestigious award “recognizes a pediatrician who has made outstanding contributions toward advocating for children and child health in the community through the effective use of epidemiologic data as part of that advocacy.”

Lipman won the honor and was formally recognized by his peers at AAP’s national conference in San Francisco on Oct.10.

“It couldn’t happen to a nicer, more deserving physician,” says Sullivan-Toomey. “He is a very kind and humble man who always treated my son like he was the most important patient he had — yet I’m sure he treats all his patients that way. It’s ironic that the largest practice in the North Shore is known for giving the most personal, individualized care,” she adds.

Lipman is co-founder and senior physician of Pediatric Health Care Associates, which has five offices throughout the North Shore. Lipman did his premedical training at Harvard and received his M.D. from Tufts University School of Medicine, where he still serves as an associate clinical professor. He and his wife Lora, who live in Beverly, have four children ages 18-32. In his spare time, Dr. Lipman enjoys gardening and collecting antique clocks.

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Old Chelsea High School to Host Grand Reunion

Gary Band
Jewish Journal Staff

When the doors of the old Chelsea High School on Crescent Avenue open on August 20, 2005, participants in the Chelsea Grand Reunion will be transported back in time.

Open to grads from the Classes of 1933-1980 — and organized by Herb Kupersmith of Marblehead together with a 45-member committee that includes Adrean Abrams, Minna Karass Marino and Harold Mindel — the night promises to evoke memories and celebrate the people and places that made the old neighborhood what it was.

“I think people from Chelsea have a common bond,” Kupersmith said of the 1.8 square mile town that once had 16 synagogues. Tours of the Walnut Street Shul will also be part of the reunion festivities.

And in addition to the graduates of Chelsea High, an estimated 75 teachers are expected to attend this first-ever gathering of its kind.

Kupersmith, who graduated in the Class of 1957, says all stops will be pulled to ensure the reunion creates a genuine sense of being back in high school. Class lists will be posted, live music will be played in the gym (where fans will be keeping things cool), and an Italian buffet, catered by Rita’s of Chelsea, will be served in the cafeteria.

While most now live in Marblehead, Swamspcott and Peabody, Kupersmith says he’s received reservations from former Chelsea people now living in Hawaii, California, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Florida, Alaska, Oregon, and London.

“It’s kind of chilling to walk back into a place you haven’t been since 1950,” Kupersmith said. “But the thing about Chelsea is you can start up a conversation with someone and it feels like you never left.”

He says part of his motivation for organizing this reunion was the loss of eight friends of his over the last year and a half. “I just felt that I wanted to see people who I may never see again,” he said. “These are people I’ve been friends with since I was four. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

Kupersmith says that he has personally made 400 phone calls and so far no one has said they couldn’t come.

In addition to maintaining the Walnut Street Shul, he has also endowed many scholarships, helping approximately 500 kids go to college.

“Some of my mentors told me to never leave the cup dry, to always leave something for someone else. A lot of people helped me, and it’s good to give back and maintain a connection to your past.”

Arlene Barnes of Marblehead, who also graduated in the Class of 57, remembers climbing up Powderhorn Hill. “We thought we were so daring.” Of the old neighborhood she said, “I loved it. I never knew there was anything else. We left our doors unlocked, we could walk home late at night, and everything was in walking distance. No matter where you went you bumped into somebody you knew. It was an incredible place to grow up.”

Arnie Goodman of Peabody was in the Class of 1950. “Those were the good ole days,” he said. Goodman went on to graduate from Boston University and returned to the city of his youth where he taught English Composition, Literature and Physical Education for 30 years on the junior and high school level.

“Chelsea was very good to me and I tried to be good to it,” he said.

Goodman is in charge of putting together the picture book which should include around 200 images and will be given out to all who attend. “Just being in the building will bring back lots of memories,” he said. “Everyone will have their stories to tell, and they get bigger and better every year. It should be a real humdinger.”

Minna Karas-Marino, Class of 59, grew up on Walnut Street in Chelsea’s Ward 2 and still lives on Cottage Street in the once second most densely populated Jewish community in the country. Her father was a member of the Walnut Street Shul and she and her brother still attend on the High Holidays.

The best part about Chelsea for her? “The people. It was a melting pot. There was a Polish section, an Italian, an Irish, but in our area there was everybody. My childhood was wonderful. Nobody knew they were poor, and everybody looked out for everybody. I’d say the biggest difference from then to now is our four-room apartment used to be called a dungeon, now we call it a condo.”

Murray Siegel, who still lives in Chelsea, graduated in the Class of 1938. He grew up on Walnut, Fifth, Addison, and for last 35 years on Cottage Street. He taught at the Williams Junior High School for 32 years, was principal of the Burke school for five years, and retired in 1982. And for 20 years after that he served on the Chelsea School Committee.

“The demographics have changed but Chelsea has always been a great, hard-working community,” he said. “And thanks to a tremendous city manager, four new schools have been built, new business has been coming in, and this city is still going strong.”

For reservations to the August 20 Grand Reunion, call Herb Kupersmith at 781-639-5151 or 617-285-3191.

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The Election According to Michael Goldman

Gary Band
Jewish Journal Staff

SALEM — Speaking to over 100 people at Salem State College’s Lifelong Learning Institute November 9, former veteran political consultant turned Bloomberg Radio talkshow host Michael Goldman of Marblehead had plenty to say about why John Kerry lost the election.
“George Bush understood one of the most important things in politics: Keep it simple. Kerry is and came off as too educated. He had too great an understanding of the complexity of the world, and was almost never able to speak in terms that many ordinary voters could relate to.”

Goldman went on to say that throughout the campaign in general and during the convention in particular, “Kerry not only failed to define himself but failed to define his opponent. You had to say, ‘This is a guy who’ll look you in the eye and lie to you. He lied about his National Guard duty, he lied about WMD, he lied about the reasons for going to war.’”
More importantly, Goldman said, Kerry never recovered from the ‘I voted for the war before I voted against it’ statement, he failed to respond quickly and forcefully enough to the Swift Boat Veteran’s ads, he had no convincing economic plan, and no overriding and consistent theme or message to his campaign.”

Furthermore, Goldman contends that the Democratic National Convention was a disaster.
“Conventions aren’t camps. They’re not a time to sing Kumbaya. It’s the time to frame your opponent. Undecideds who watched the DNC heard no reason not to vote for George Bush. [Georgia Senator] Zell Miller, though a little much, did what you’re supposed to do. Undecideds who were thinking about voting for Kerry came away from the RNC saying, ‘Kerry, I’m not so sure anymore.’”

Calling the Swift Boat Veterans “despicable,” Goldman said “everything they said was untrue. Kerry was in fact a genuine war hero. But because the campaign said it wouldn’t spend any money in August; they wouldn’t spend any money in August,” Goldman repeated incredulously, “by the time Kerry responded, the Swift Boat message had sunk in and he lost the battle.”

Citing a doctoral thesis done by a student at the University of California Berkeley on the number of justifications the Bush Administration stated for going to war, Goldman said the student found 23 different reasons. “Talk about flip flopping. What a speech this kid could have given.”

Another of Kerry’s mistakes was believing the press would protect him against false allegations, Goldman said. “That is a huge difference in my lifetime. It doesn’t matter what the truth is anymore. In its striving for balance, the media will no longer say that something is just flat out untrue. As just one example, polls suggest 47 percent believed the Swift Boat Veteran ads were telling the truth.”

Another shortcoming was Kerry’s commercials. “We didn’t see a lot of them here in his home state, but even the ones in critical battleground states, none of them made you walk away saying ‘That’s John Kerry. I know him, I trust him, and I’m going to vote for him.’”

There are three questions candidates have to answer to win, Goldman said. Does the candidate understand my problems? Does he care? And will he do anything for me?

Despite Bush’s inarticulate stumblings and failure to understand the issues facing the nation and the world, Goldman said that the 59 million people who voted for him saw them as one their own.

Goldman contends that Kerry’s failure to connect with and speak the language of southern and middle American voters in the way that Bill Clinton did planted seeds of doubt that Kerry and most northeastern liberals looked down on, didn’t understand, and didn’t care about these people’s issues and concerns.

“Ten days out the Democrats could have won this election with a more forceful and localized message about jobs, taxes and the environment. Many people, in Ohio in particular, were waiting for a less generalized message that never came.”

The good news, Goldman said, is that there is an ebb and flow in politics. “The Democrats lost the battle but not the war. The war is never over and the ultimately the party in power has to govern. But one thing’s for sure: next time around, it can no longer be about guns, gays and God. It can no longer be about running to the middle. It has to be, ‘They say liberal is bad, I say it’s good, and here’s why.’ You have to bring people to your side.”

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Staff Report

Gerald M. Perlow, MD, was elected president of the Jewish Journal at the group’s annual meeting in Salem November 15.

A retired cardiologist from Swampscott, Perlow heads a group of officers that includes Laurie Jacobs, vice president; Eric S. Levy, treasurer; and Michael Strauss, corporate counsel. Perlow will succeed Carl D. Goodman of Marblehead, who will remain on the board.

Elected to the board for the first time were Izzi Abrams of Salem, a librarian and former director of pre-school, adult services, and youth activities at the Jewish Community Center of the North Shore; Barbara Assa of Marblehead, assistant administrator of the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for the Aged (Jack Satter House) in Revere, and Levy of Swampscott, managing director of Putnam Investments and treasurer of Cohen Hillel Academy. The three will replace three members who are stepping down after many years of service: former president Barbara Ingber of Marblehead, Natalie Winer of Danvers, and Arthur Bernstein of Peabody.

Re-elected to the board were Strauss, former president Rick Borten, Debby Sudenfield, and Selma Williams.

The Journal is an independent nonprofit newspaper dedicated to building a stronger sense of identity and connectedness among Jews in 26 communities north of Boston.

It is supported by advertising, voluntary donations, and a grant from the Jewish Federation of the North Shore

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Girls’ Night Out

SALEM — Two hundred women enjoyed dinner and schmoozing at Salem’s Hawthorne Hotel in celebration of Jewish Book Month’s tenth annual Girls’ Night Out November 10.

Letty Cottin Pogrebin, a founding editor of Ms. Magazine and author of nine books including Deborah, Golda and Me and Three Daughters, was the featured guest. The Jewish feminist, who is fit and healthy at age 65, read several excerpts from Three Daughters and then fielded questions from the enthusiastic audience.

The likeable Brandeis graduate, who is working on a new novel about a male Holocaust survivor who falls in love with a black militant radio host, urged listeners who yearn to write fiction to “write about what you don’t know about what you know.” When asked to compare Judaism to feminism, Pogrebin remarked, “Judaism has lasted 3,500 years while feminism is being forgotten by our daughters. This issue matters to me a great deal.”

— Susan Jacobs

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Gary Band
Jewish Journal Staff

On January 23, 2002, the late Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was lured from his Karachi apartment. Following a tip from a source regarding his research on a story about possible ties between accused “shoe bomber” Richard Reid and a Pakistani militant, Pearl was on his way to what he believed was an interview with Sheikh Mubarik ali Gilani, the head of the fundamentalist Islamic Jamaat ul-Fuqra group.

Abducted, interrogated, and one month later, before he was executed, the last words of the handsome and talented 38-year-old were, “My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish.”

Although all evidence suggests that either Al Qaeda or the Pakistani Secret Police are responsible for the horrific crime, no information on either the exact identity of the perpetrators or their whereabouts has been made available, and no one has been charged with the crime.

Danny’s father, Dr. Judea Pearl, a computer science professor at UCLA, is an Israeli who came to the United States in 1960. In the introduction to I am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl, a book that he and his wife Ruth edited, Judea wrote:

“I came to realize that Danny left us with a precious gift in those words — a faithful mirror in which we, Jews, can see ourselves. Danny had that mirror too; he was not alone on that fateful day....Over time, steadily emerging from rage and pain, there came for me a sense of pride at Danny’s unyielding dignity in those critical moments.

In advance of his speaking engagement at Temple Beth El in Swampscott on December 7, The Journal spoke with Dr. Pearl from his home in Los Angeles.

Since the book came out a year ago, he has spoken to approximately 15 audiences — from the 92nd Street Y in New York City to synagogues in Los Angeles. “I like to speak. Try to stop me,” he said.

In the book Pearl writes, “We saw in this potential yet another part of Danny’s victory over his murderers: while they tried to sow fear and humiliation among Jews, Danny’s words would lead to empowerment and pride and, eventually, to a stronger more united Jewish people.”

So, with help from an idea by 12-year-old Alana Frey — who for her bat mitzvah project asked friends and relatives to write what being Jewish means to them and send it in to Danny and his wife Maryane’s now 2 and half year old son Adam — the idea for a book was born.

It later occurred to him that “the theme was so powerful that it could inspire contributions from a wide range of Jews from all walks of life.”

Pearl said he and his wife had a big table covered with lists of well and not so well-known Jewish people categorized by professions, gender and a range of thought and perspectives. Eventually arriving at 300 names, they wrote personal letters to each explaining what they were trying to do.

In the end, they received 147 responses and printed essays by such people as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writers Wendy Wasserstein, singer Debbie Friedman, actor Richard Dreyfuss, Harvard’s Alan Dershowitz, former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, and Rabbi Harold Kushner. Ruth and Judea Pearl also contributed their thoughts.

All royalties from the book benefit the Daniel Pearl Foundation which promotes cross cultural understanding through journalism, music and dialogue.

The journalism component places professional Muslim journalists with American newspapers, who, after a period of time can go back to their countries to speak about the merits of a free press and honest reporting. The journalism track also works with high school students in Arab countries as well as training Palestinian and Israeli youth who show an interest in journalism.

As for the music dimension, annual world-wide concerts are organized around Danny’s birthday, October 10, to raise public awareness of the crime against him and promote honesty, respect for others, and love of humanity, some of Danny’s core values. So far 400 concerts in 39 countries, all dedicated to his mother Ruth, have been held in such places as Tunisia, Jordan, Turkey, Azerbajan, Afghanastan, and Pakistan.
The dialogue component organizes public dialogues between Muslims and Jews in forums around the country to air differences and search for common ground. Pearl and a professor of Islamic studies at American University go from town to town, sit on a stage and lead discussions on “how we may resolve differences and come to more friendly relations.”
Pearl said he believes the only way to eradicate terrorism is to have “liberal-minded Muslims who suffer from terrorism themselves do it for us.
“It appears the only way to turn that tragedy into something positive is to believe in the illusion that Danny’s death was not in vain. It is a matter of emphasizing our common enemy and educating people to believe that Jews are not the enemy of Muslim people.”

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‘Moral Values’ Talk Worries Jews

Ron Kampeas
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

WASHINGTON — It’s like one of those family fights that devolves into shouts of “You just don’t get it.”

Conservative Christians wonder if “blue-state” voters — those in states that went Democratic — get the values that drove them to the polls in unprecedented numbers to re-elect George W. Bush.

People who voted for John Kerry — among them, three quarters of the Jewish electorate — wonder if “red-state” voters that went Republican understand why those values make them nervous.

In election exit surveys conducted by the American Jewish Committee, Jews who voted for the Massachusetts senator on Nov. 2 consistently cited the Democrats’ position on church-state separation. Now, President Bush’s claim that he has a mandate from the 51 percent of voters who chose him has many Jewish officials worried.

They worry especially that a plurality of Bush voters — 22 percent — cited “moral values” as the primary reason for their votes. Such moral values include opposition to abortion rights, a greater role for religion in government and opposition to gay marriage.

“The message that the Christian right think the election is a success for them has caught people’s attention,” said Hannah Rosenthal, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, an umbrella body for Jewish community relations councils nationwide. ‘Whether or not it really is a success, their proclamation that they have increased the power has caused a great deal of discomfort to the community.”

Certainly, there has been no lack of preening by some Christian leaders.

“Christian Evangelicals Made the Major Difference in the 2004 Presidential Election” was the headline of a post-election release from the Christian Coalition, a massive lobby group that opposes gay marriage and abortion.

Rich Galen, a strategist for the Republicans, told the BBC this week that “red-state” Americans felt left out of the traditional power centers, and expressed their frustration with their vote.

“When people say values, I think it is it is an uncomfortableness with what I like to call the Upper West Side of Manhattan and Hollywood being the arbiters of what is right and what is wrong,” he said.

That triumphalism may presage a stronger push to bring Christianity into the public square, and many Jewish officials — especially those in the red states — are ready for a backlash.

“People are questioning where the line is,” said Deborah Lauter, regional director for the Anti-Defamation League in Georgia. “There has been an increase in stealth evangelism. We’re seeing it everywhere.”

Lauter says that when she trades battle stories with other regional directors, the others deal primarily with anti-Israel activism, while much of her work has to do with stemming Christian influence.

Some recent examples in Georgia are evangelicals who distribute pamphlets in public schools, stickers that appear in school textbooks disclaiming evolutionary theory, and the curious case of a Jewish cheerleader singled out by her Christian coach.
Jaclyn Steele anguished for months before bringing her case to public attention, said her stepfather, David Bernath.

“It has been a gut-wrenching decision for our family to do this,” Bernath said of the case they made against cheerleading coach Marilou Braswell at the University of Georgia in Athens. “We thought about not doing this, but we made the decision we couldn’t let this go on.”

An avid cheerleader since her early teens, Steele at first tried to avoid the references to Jesus in the locker room, and the prayer sessions at Braswell’s house. Eventually she was prompted to act by other cheerleaders who told her that failure to participate in the prayer sessions would probably keep her off the “A” team.

The family met with Braswell, but it didn’t go well.

“She told us, ‘Well, you know we live in the Bible Belt, what do you expect, this is the way I was raised,’ “ Bernath recalled. “She never got it.”

Braswell eventually toned down the evangelism, but the university fired her after she singled out Steele at the beginning of the school year in a prepared statement she read to cheerleaders about the controversy.

Bernath said the family was heartened by the support it received in the media and at the university, a sign that evangelism was not pervasive. But he worried that it was increasing, citing his own experience in keeping evangelical pamphleteers out of schools in Marietta, Ga., and said Bush’s re-election was a harbinger of more to come.

“Even though George Bush says he respect everyone’s faith — and I believe, deep in his heart, he does — the religious right is ready to cash in what it can,” Bernath said.

Braswell already has grass-roots organizations campaigning for her rehiring. A group called the Center for Reclaiming America has urged a letter-writing campaign.

That kind of reaction can be harmful for Jews, say some Jewish officials, who cite the evangelicals’ friendliness on other matters — especially support for Israel.

“It is wrong and short-sighted of Israel and the Jewish community not to reach out to these people, even as they become more and more powerful,” said Yechiel Eckstein, president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, who fund-raises among evangelical Christians for Israeli and Jewish causes.

“The Jewish community needs to get its act together,” Eckstein told JTA. “When you have a president of the United States who is a born-again Christian, a speaker of the house who is a born-again Christian, and you have the Karl Rove strategy of bringing in evangelicals, you are dealing with a force.”

Others counseled a more flexible approach, allying with the Christian right on shared issues and making differences clear on others.
Avi Shafran is the director of public affairs for the fervently Orthodox Agudath Israel of America.

“Moral concerns do not equate with Christian concerns,” he said.

The key, he suggested, is for Jews not to slavishly join one camp or the other, allowing them to point out differences with either side when they arise.

JTA Correspondent Yigal Schleifer contributed to this story from Istanbul.

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International

Post-Arafat Era
Get Your Act Together, U.S. Tells Palestinians

Leslie Susser
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

JERUSALEM — The post-Arafat era has begun with high hopes in Washington, London, Jerusalem and even Ramallah — but many of the obstacles that prevented peace in Arafat’s day remain, and it’s not clear whether any of the major players has the single-minded determination to make peace happen.

The United States is not as actively involved as it may have to be; the Europeans, who would like to be intimately involved, don’t have the necessary political clout; the Israeli leadership, insulated by strong American backing and facing a recalcitrant right wing, sees no need to hurry; and the new Palestinian leaders, hamstrung by radical, violent opponents, may not be able to make concessions beyond what the late Palestinian Authority president countenanced.

President Bush gave an inkling of the ambivalence inherent in American policy after a meeting last week in Washington with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Bush rejected Blair’s call for an international conference and a speedy transition to talks on a final peace agreement, saying the Palestinians first would have to stop terrorism against Israel. At the same time, however, Bush said he still believed the establishment of a Palestinian state is the only way to resolve the conflict.

The essence of American policy can be gleaned from those ostensibly incongruous statements: The United States will help the Palestinians achieve statehood on condition that they stop violence and carry out economic, security and political reforms. In other words, it’s up to them to make the first move.

Bush also seemed to alter the time frame for Palestinian statehood. Whereas the Road Map peace plan — presented in 2002 — spoke of 2005 as the target date, Bush said he was determined to work toward a Palestinian state by the time he leaves office, in January 2009.

This reinforced the president’s main message to the Palestinians: They must get their act together before the United States will be ready to help. If they’re slow, there will be a price to pay in the deferral of national aspirations. The quicker they act, the quicker statehood can be achieved.

European officials believe the American role primarily should be to help the new Palestinian leadership establish its legitimacy. First, they say, the United States can help with elections for a new P.A. president by leaning on Israel to allow optimum conditions for a free election, with as few signs of occupation as possible.

The election process will have two salutary effects, the Europeans argue: bringing to power a Palestinian leader accepted by the people and creating a sense of democracy at work.

The Europeans also believe that they and the Americans can aid Palestinian democratization by helping to build institutions and train P.A. security forces. But they know that Europe alone cannot effect a breakthrough, and that the United States must take the lead.

As for the Palestinians, they cannot take things forward unless the new leaders establish a stable government. So far, the signs do not augur well.

An incident Nov. 14 in which militiamen from the PLO’s mainstream Fatah movement opened fire on the mourners’ tent for Arafat — when his heir apparent, Mahmoud Abbas, and Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan were inside — is symptomatic of a fairly widespread refusal to accept Abbas’ authority. Two of Abbas’s bodyguards were killed.

Though it apparently wasn’t an assassination attempt, the shooting was meant to warn Abbas not to diverge from Arafat’s hardline. The assailants shouted, “No Abbas, no Dahlan and no CIA,” suggesting that some Palestinians see the two as American puppets capable of selling out Palestinian interests.

For his part, Abbas believes only America can deliver the goods.

On the Israeli side, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wants to give Abbas every chance, or at least give the impression of doing so. Despite opposition from some of his closest supporters in the Cabinet, Sharon seems set to allow eastern Jerusalem Arabs to vote in the Palestinian election, even though that part of the city was annexed by Israel in1968 and Israeli officials have been wary of any step that could bolster Palestinian claims there.

Sharon also has the defense establishment working on contingency plans: The National Security Council is considering how Israel’s planned unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank can be coordinated with the Palestinians, and the Israel Defense Forces and the Defense Ministry are drafting blueprints for Palestinian security reforms as well as steps to end the intifada.

Sharon also is contemplating gestures that could help Abbas build authority, such as releasing prisoners and withdrawing the Israeli army from Palestinian cities. Recently, for example, after an operation that lasted several weeks, Israeli forces withdrew from the West Bank city of Jenin.

But Sharon faces constraints of his own. If he is finding it so difficult politically to withdraw from Gaza and a small part of the West Bank, Israeli pundits ask, how will he be able to withdraw from the huge amounts of territory that a peace agreement would entail?
For now, Sharon is pleased with the way Bush’s policy is shaping up, especially his apparent commitment that the United States will not pressure Israel to engage in peace talks until the Palestinians end violence.

But on the center-left of Israeli politics, there’s a growing sense that if the Americans don’t change course and start pressuring both sides, nothing good will happen. Writing in the economic newspaper Globes, journalist Matti Golan was the latest to articulate the feeling that the only way the deadlock can be broken is through a more proactive American policy.

In an editorial addressed personally to President Bush, Golan called for “an imposed settlement, please.” Bush, he maintains, should not be “behind Sharon,” but rather should give both sides an American lead.

Bush should put a deal on the table and tell the parties that “anyone who doesn’t sign, or even starts to argue, won’t see a single penny, not from you nor the Europeans.”

Golan concludes, “At first, Mr. Bush, there will be howls of protest. But if you hold your nerve, in the end everyone will thank you.’’

The belief that only America can pull the Israeli and Palestinian chestnuts out of the fire is growing in Europe, Israel and among the Palestinians. The question is: Will George Bush’s Washington be ready to take on all that entails?

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Features

Philanthropist Julius Alpert Lives With His Clipping and His Memories

Mark Arnold
Jewish Journal Staff

SWAMPSCOTT — The Chelsea Record of Friday, Oct. 2, 1981 displays a grainy 1930s photo of five Jewish men from Chelsea, then in their early twenties, who called themselves the Rocking Chair Club. They are a cocky-looking group, and, it can fairly be said, an ambitious group as well.

The five, says the caption, spent much of their time “planning their strategy on how to make that first million.”

How many of them achieved that goal?

“Just me,” says Julius H. Alpert, holding out the picture with a smile. He’s the one with the wavy hair and a look of confidence. “And I outlived them all too.”

Alpert, who turns 94 next month, is among the least well known of the North Shore’s Jewish fundraisers and philanthropists. That’s partly because most, though not all, of his giving has been to institutions outside the North Shore: to Israel; to the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, to almost two dozen institutions — Jewish and non-Jewish alike — in his hometown of Chelsea.

Locally, the main focus of his efforts have been Swampscott’s Temple Israel, whose sanctuary bears his name, and Salem’s Kernwood Country Club, whose fund drives he headed for several years. ”I was the first one to raise a million dollars for Israel bonds at Kernwood; I did it years ago,” he says proudly.

To review his file of aged newspaper clippings with him is to revisit the classic American success story, but with a philanthropic twist.

Julie Alpert was the seventh of 10 children born to parents who immigrated to the U.S. in 1894, settling in turn-of-the-century Chelsea. He grew up in a two-decker in the city’s Jewish section, Ward 2. He was president of his graduating class at Samuel Johnson Academy in Stratford, CT, and was chosen all-New England guard on the school’s football team.

He graduated from Syracuse University and attended Northeastern University’s School of Law but left before graduating to join his older brother Sam in a a promising iron and steel scrap business. Later, his younger brother Norman joined the pair, and the trio ran the business for 50 years.

It was as president of J. Alpert Iron Co., in Chelsea, that Alpert made most of his fortune; the rest came from shrewd investments — in midwestern shopping malls, to which he was steered by an uncle in Chicago, and in the stock market.

The secret of his success in the iron business came from an early competitive advantage. “My brother Sam located a big crane with a big magnet in Lindenville, VT,” Alpert remembers. “We may have been the first in New England. We could load a truck in an hour that would take a crew a day to load by hand. We would locate trailers right at the plants [that supplied our iron], separate it with the crane and magnet into rail cars for different grades of steel, and send those freight cars right to the mills (their customers). We were home free after that.”

The technological edge helped the brothers grow the business beginning in the 1930s, and Alpert found he could afford the time to get involved in other activities. In 1939 he married Sophie Rozman of Dorchester.

“We were fixed up, but she stood me up on my first date. After that it went smoother; I had 55 wonderful years with her. She was sweet as sweet could be.”

The couple had a daughter, Roberta, born in 1945. Alpert became active in an impressive number of Chelsea organizations, from the Chelsea School Committee (member and chairman) to the Chelsea Kiwanis Club (president), to Boston’s Combined Jewish Appeal (chairman) and Chelsea’s YMHA.

Along the way he got involved in fundraising for local hospitals. For Chelsea Jewish Nursing Home, Chelsea Memorial Hospital, and Everett’s Whidden Memorial Hospital, he raised hundreds of thousands of dollars through the years. Alpert also has given away millions. Though he has never been to Israel (“We never liked to travel,” he says), he is reportedly the largest donor to Israel bonds on the North Shore.

For years he has been president of the Chelsea Jewish Nursing Home, whose executive director, Barry Berman, talks to him weekly and calls himself Alpert’s surrogate grandson.

“In the days when he was coming up,” says Berman, “no one would give money if the person asking didn’t give themselves. So he gave, and he hit the pavement getting others to give. No computers, no brochures, just a personal appeal and his own example of giving, and giving. Everyone wanted a piece of Julius in those days because any organization with him on the team was better off because of it.”

Today, Alpert lives in a spacious, well-appointed apartment in Swampscott. Dozens of plaques honoring his years of service line the walls. He proudly displays his stack of yellowed newspaper clippings to a visitor. He is a short thin man, with a husky voice, and a mind that, he says, is not as quick as it used to be.

He lives alone. Sophie died in 1994. His daughter Roberta died in 1969 at age 25 following an unsuccessful battle against Hodgkins Disease. He established the Roberta Alpert Bernstein Hodgkins Research Foundation at Boston’s Deaconess Hospital in her memory. Roberta was maried and had a daughter, who now has three children of her own, Alpert’s great grandchildren. They live in North Carolina. He winters in Fort Lauderdale, FL.

“There’s almost no one around today that I know from before,” he says sighing. “I guess that’s what happens if you live long enough.”

In the ‘Big Inning’; Beyond Belief

Rabbi Steven J. Rubenstein
Special to The Journal

When I was in rabbinical school, several classes were devoted to discussing what would happen on the day when the world ended and the mashiach finally arrived. Even though there have been several proposals made throughout the centuries, the only conclusion is that no one really knows. It is “beyond belief,” or beyond any rational speculation or mere interpretation of someone else’s vision.

We look to religion to help us focus on what is most important in life. For we all know that beyond the dogmas, beyond the creeds, and beyond the metaphysical ideas, there is a world beyond this one where dreams come true. Until we reach that place, we must struggle with the ambiguities in our lives, the stuff that lies between a life of reverence and a life of ridicule, as well as between the absurd and the sublime.

One of my professors challenged us to consider what would happen to people on the day after the mashiach failed to show up. Try to imagine the disappointment following the anticipation that rises to a feverish pitch of expectation.

As a member of Red Sox Nation, it was not very difficult for me to get in touch with this set of emotions. For 86 years, residents of Boston and Red Sox Nation have anticipated a World Series victory with bated breath, going seven games on more than one occasion, only to lose in the end and suffer all winter in discontentment.

For those of us who treat baseball as a spiritual endeavor, the High Holidays are just a prelude to the amount of praying that goes on in arenas other than the synagogue. What we all seek as we watch our beloved team take the field, especially in the post-season playoffs, is a sense of the sacredness that others have experienced in their lifetime.

What we really want to experience is the joy, the awe, and the wonder as it transcends exaltation. We want to have a meaningful religious moment where “belief” is suspended and we come into the presence of that vastness where our consciousness gives way to that which is beyond all rational explanation.

“Beyond belief” is a relative term to describe what it means to surrender yourself to a truth that is not a commodity, that cannot be advertised on some hat or emblazoned on a tee shirt. It is an emotional response that invites us to attend to those emotions that are buried so deeply inside. When this happens, it is not only the mind that is convinced that something miraculous has truly occurred, but the heart has also been touched in a way that it cannot return to its former self.

Now that the Red Sox parades and celebration have died down, and Theo Epstein and his staff have had a chance to review their records, we all can speculate on what changes will take place for the upcoming season:

Who will live with the Red Sox for another year,
And who will leave to another team in free agency;
Who will retire from professional baseball,
And who will make the roster from the minors;
Who will be traded to another team,
And who will be exchanged in return?

As Thanksgiving gives way to Chanukah and the story of the miracle, what a gift we have been given! What lessons we have learned about hope, faith, teamwork, camaraderie and living up to one’s potential! In the end, nothing is really beyond belief.

A little ritual, a little superstition, a little magic — all these are just some of the ingredients that make baseball a spiritual religion unto itself, something special to those who dream to live somewhere at the crossroads between reality and imagination, trusting in miracles, knowing that hard work and dedication and knowing how to play the game with integrity will always make a person a winner — no matter what the final score may be.

Steven Rubenstein is the rabbi of Temple B’nai Abraham in Beverly. He enjoys combining his hobby of collecting baseball cards with the aura of being Jewish in a professional sport.

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World Jewry

Rice to Head State
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Condoleezza Rice, who established close ties with the Israeli government as President Bush’s national security adviser, was chosen as the next U.S. secretary of state. Rice will replace Colin Powell, who resigned Nov. 15. Rice, who is considered one of Bush’s closest confidantes, enjoys generally good ties with the American Jewish leadership and has been Bush’s main contact person with the government of Israeli Prime Minster Ariel Sharon.
Israel welcomed the expected appointment. Rice is a “friend of Israel and we anticipate that under her our strategic ties with the United States will go from strength to strength,” a senior Israeli official said Nov. 16. With Yasser Arafat dead, the Palestinian Authority said it hoped Rice would help restart peace talks. But many Palestinians privately bemoaned the impending departure of Powell, who was perceived as more insistent on keeping Israel to its commitments under the Road Map peace plan. Hamas even dismissed Rice as a “Zionist.”

Argentine Jews Appeal Acquittal
BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — Argentine Jewish groups appealed the acquittal of five defendants in the bombing of an Argentine Jewish center. The DAIA Jewish political umbrella organization, the AMIA Jewish community center and the largest group of victims’ relatives, Familiares de las Victimas, united Nov. 15 in the appeal. Five locals were acquitted in September of involvement in the July 1994 attack on the AMIA center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people and wounded some 300. The bombing has never been solved.

Complaint Over Rocket Fire
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel lodged a complaint with the United Nations about a rocket salvo from Lebanon. The complaint was filed Nov. 16 after troops discovered the remains of a Katyusha rocket outside the northern town of Shlomi. A second rocket fired Nov. 15 did not make it across the frontier. A little-known militia, the Martyr Ghaleb Awali Group, claimed responsibility for the attack, but Israeli officials blamed Hezbollah, which effectively controls southern Lebanon. Israeli security sources said cross-border retaliation could be mounted if such attacks continue.

Full Disclosure Sought on Arafat
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Palestinian Authority asked French officials to release a medical report on Yasser Arafat’s death. The request was made Nov. 15 amid growing rumors among Palestinians that Israel poisoned the Palestinian Authority president. Arafat succumbed to a mysterious illness in a military hospital outside Paris on Nov. 11. Under French law, his widow, Suha, has the right to withhold details on his death, but she was not immediately available for comment on the Palestinian Authority request. Nabil Sha’ath, the P.A.’s foreign minister, last week dismissed the possibility of poisoning.

Intifada Costs Billions
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The four-year fight against Palestinian intifada terrorism has cost Israel’s economy $12.5 billion. According to Treasury figures released this week, the service sector, especially tourism, has been hardest hit by the violence that erupted in September 2000. The figure of $12.5 billion is roughly equivalent to Israel’s annual defense budget. The Palestinians have lost $4.5 billion in the past four years, a heavy blow given the fragile economic infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Jerusalem Post to Have New Owner
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Canadian media company and an Israeli media group appear set to take over the Jerusalem Post. CanWest Global Communications Corp. and the Mirkaei Tikshoret Group each will own 50 percent of the newspaper, as well as the Jerusalem Report magazine and other properties, according to media reports. The sale by Hollinger International group is believed to be for $13.2 million.
Hollinger paid $21.5 million for the newspaper, which it acquired in two stages in 1989 and 1990. Hollinger International has been selling off its holdings after Conrad Black, its CEO, resigned amid an internal investigation that found that Black and others stole tens of millions of dollars from the company. Black has denied any impropriety. Mirkaei Tikshoret has holdings that include TV and radio stations, as well as daily newspapers in Russian and magazines in Hebrew and Russian.

City Clashes on Divestment
SOMERVILLE, MA (JTA) — The City Council of Somerville considered a resolution to dump city holdings in Israel. A vote was delayed until Dec. 7, and Mayor Joseph Curtatone, who spoke against the resolution at a Nov. 15 meeting, said he would veto it, according to the Boston Globe, which noted that lawmakers could not recall another resolution that had prompted such impassioned debate. The local Jewish Community Relations Council was “troubled” by the crowd of activists evenly split on the resolution, which urges city investors to “divest from companies involved with Israel’s human rights violations and from Israel Bonds.”
JCRC Executive Director Nancy Kaufman, who organized local leaders to speak against the move, said those in favor of the resolution enlisted the support of Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve in the army, many non-Somerville residents, and members of the Jewish community. “It’s a sad day when we as Jews are advocating for divestment in Israel,” Kaufman said. This is “just the beginning of something that we’re going to see more of across the country.”

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People in the News

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Arts & Entertainment

Daughter’s New CD Illuminates Carlebach Tradition

Mark Arnold
Jewish Journal Staff

Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach died 10 years ago last month, leaving behind a legacy of popular religious songs that are now part of the standard service in the Reform and Conservative movements. Many of us sing his infectious, uplifting tunes without knowing where they came from on Shabbat, on holidays, at bar and bat mitzvot, and at wedding ceremonies.

Less well known is his daughter Neshama, the foremost interpreter of her father’s ballads. On her fifth and latest CD, Journey, Neshama Carlebach demonstrates why her father is the foremost songwriter in contemporary Judaism, while establishing herself as a major talent in her own right.

On October 30 she appeared in a performance in New York City to celebrate her father’s yahrzeit. In the next year, she has scheduled performances in other U.S. cities, Canada, South Africa, Israel, and Europe.

Eleven of the 13 songs on this recording were composed by Rabbi Shlomo; the two others were penned by Neshama and David Morgan. All are in Hebrew except for the stirring, anthemic “Return Again,” and “Niggun Neshama.” This is inspirational music of the highest order, orchestrated brilliantly, capable of elevating the spirit and captivating the soul.

The CD is available in most Judaica stores or at cdbaby.com, neshamacarlebach.com.

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Two Films Highlight Festival

Mark Arnold
Jewish Journal Staff

DANVERS — Pandemonium reined in the lobby of the Hollywood Hits theater at the opening of the 16th annual Jewish Film Festival here November 9. Those who had ordered tickets competed for space with those seeking to buy tickets, and both groups were in conflict with people who wanted to see one of the discount theater’s “regular” movies.

A few minutes later, the groups sorted out, and Jewish theater goers scrambled to find seats for what proved to be a remarkable movie exploring the meaning of Jewish identity in the diaspora: Rashevski’s Tango.

This French language film is a complicated tale of family, love, and interfaith relationships, across generations and across cultural and religious barriers— Christian, Moslem, and Jewish. What does it mean to be Jewish? Can converts to Judaism be more Jewish than born Jews? A beautiful, strangely satisfying movie with twists and turns that make its almost two-hour length seem reasonable.

Tango was one of two films brought to the North Shore by the festival, both subsidized by the Jewish Federation of the North Shore. The other, Watermarks, shown November 11, which played to a much smaller house, is a documentary of Austria’s HaKoah women’s swim team, a group of Jewish women who — excluded from the Olympic Games in Germany by the Nazis, competed in the 1935 Maccabi Games in Palestine. The film traces the lives of seven of its members across several continents; they remained bonded by their common girlhood experience and their friendship.

The Jewish Film Festival this year ran from November 3-14 and presented 45 independently produced films, shown in six locations, reflecting the work of artists from 16 countries. Given the high level of interest locally in their exploration of Jewish identity, is it too much to hope that more than two of them find their way to our community next year?

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Editorial

Good Riddance to Arafat; New Dangers Ahead

Arafat is dead. He will be remembered for his survival skills and his manipulation of foreign governments and media. It is amazing how successfully he portrayed his 40-year campaign for statehood as a national liberation movement of Palestinians — a people with no common history or identity — while ignoring its companion purpose: to annihilate the state of Israel.

And he will be remembered for the terrorism he initiated, championed, and supported, openly and covertly.

If ever a leader talked with forked tongue, it was Arafat. We say good riddance.

But his death provides more challenge than opportunity for Israel and the United States.

As long as Arafat was in power, the Bush White House bought Prime Minister Sharon’s argument that it had no peace partner to negotiate with. Under Bush, Arafat was marginalized, cast aside, and though two successive prime ministers were appointed to preside over his Palestinian Authority in Gaza and the West Bank, there was never any doubt that Arafat held all the cards.

Now with Arafat gone and the same two deputies — moderate though weak and aged — tentatively sharing power, the White House is intent on bringing the parties to the negotiating table to hammer out a two-state solution.

It is clear that George Bush feels emboldened by his re-election and ready to undertake a new Middle East initiative while stepping up the nation’s prosecution of the war in Iraq. Thus, in introducing Condoleezza Rice as his nominee to succeed Colin Powell as Secretary of State November 16, Bush promised the U.S. will answer the “great calling of history to aid the forces of reform and freedom in the broader Middle East so that the region can grow in hope, instead of growing in anger.”

The thought is noble, elevating. And we wish the moderate leaders of the Palestinians well. But they have no mandate and no power base. The younger generation of leaders waiting in the wings are militants, not moderates. And it’s doubtful that a two-state solution will satisfy them or what is loosely called “the Arab street.”

A promised election in the next 60 days may confer legitimacy on their government, but we frankly don’t expect any moderate Palestinian leaders to survive for long. Moderation is not what moves Palestinians, militancy is. Missing from their internal dialogue are any voices urging Palestinians to live in peace with Israel.

It’s hard to be optimistic about Palestinian-Israeli relations — or Arab-Israeli relations generally — when you look at Arab maps of the Middle East. There is no Israel there.

— Mark R. Arnold

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Local Columnists

After Arafat, A Precarious Ride for Israel

DOV BURT LEVY Jewish Journal North of Boston Dov Burt Levy is a Salem, MA based columnist. He can be reached at dblevy@columnist. com..

On the day of Yasser Arafat’s funeral, a friend, who keeps track of such things phoned to tell me that Arafat had lied on his French death certificate saying that he was born in Jerusalem when in fact he was born in Cairo.

Look, I told him, you can blame Arafat for sending terrorists to kill children, dispatching suicide bombers to kill thousands of innocent people, blowing-up commercial aircraft, and turning the Olympics into a killing field. You can throw in embezzlement of humanitarian and economic aid from western countries, plus other scams that increased Arafat’s net worth to several billions of dollars. But, on this death certificate thing, the culprit is probably his wife, an aide or maybe politicians who arrived at his bedside just before he died.

Arafat is dead and his power died with him. His significance will disappear within moments of, if not before, the end of the 40 days of official mourning. But, in larger measure, my friend is correct. We need to ensure, as best we can, that Arafat’s successful tactics, his lying, his years of hyperbole and hypocrisy, of making promises in English and breaking them in Arabic, do not become something we allow Europeans or ourselves to wink at. Something that we disregard, ignore, dismiss as just being, well, “how Arabs operate,” if done again by Arafat’s successors.

For starters, our electronic media, our newspaper reporters and editors, should learn a little history as well as how to recognize hyperbole. I literally choked reading USA Today’s Arafat obituary, which described him as “the George Washington and Abraham Lincoln of the Palestinians,” quoting the president of the obscure American Task Force on Palestine. (At least they could have added the names of Charles Ponzi and Kenneth Lay.)

The first act of a new Middle East play began before the cement was dry on Arafat’s Ramallah tomb when Prime Minister Tony Blair met with President Bush at the White House. Blair brought an urgent plea to Mr. Bush for United States involvement in pushing the Road Map of the Middle East Peace Process because, as Blair puts it, “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the most serious problem facing the world today.”

A less-than-auspicious beginning. Too much hyperbole once again. Has Blair forgotten international terrorism of the 9/11 variety, the need to capture bin Laden, to find and destroy missing Soviet nuclear weapons, to end the genocide in Sudan?

But even more important is the implication in Blair’s statement that Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians is the source of Arab militancy and terrorism. Solve that problem and you will lessen or end that militancy. Wrong.

The future of Israel and the Palestinians is now being tied to the so-called Road Map, a 2,217 word document authored by the so-called Quartet (the United States, the Russian Federation, the European Union, the United Nations). The Road Map requires specific steps and negotiations by and between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, including two international conferences, after which a peaceful Palestinian state will be born.

In the best possible world, it could work if, and only if, both sides fulfill their promises in word and deed. Ten years ago, a comfortable majority of Israelis would have voted for peace at any reasonable price. Today, only a small and more sober group of peaceniks see the Road Map as an achievable plan for a real peace. Many more see it as a defunct historical document nullified by the terrorist killings of a thousand Israelis. For others, it is a blueprint for Palestinians to accumulate territory and gain statehood before starting another Intifada.
We must hope and work hard to see that President Bush, who did not buy Arafat’s litany of lies, will continue to be watchful for similar lies from the mouth of a new, even democratically elected, Palestinian president.

Before we can be sure that the Road Map will lead Israel to a worthwhile destination, details need to be filled in, strong protections and assurances built in. Only then should Israel press on the accelerator.

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Blotting Out His Name

ELLEN GOLUB Ellen Golub teaches journalism at Salem State College.She can be reached at elkele@attbi.com

“What can I tell the children when the Torah tells us to blot out Amalek?” my daughter’s young teacher asks at the open house. I am clueless. The command in Deuteronomy seems pretty clear to me. I stare up at him blankly.

“The Torah specifically tells us to hate Amalek,” he continues. “But hatred is wrong.”

I want to be perplexed, but I don’t see the problem. Amalek attacked the Jewish people on our way out of Egypt, the only nation to be so bold and heartless. How many Purims have I drowned out the name of Haman the Amalekite, screaming, stomping, and clapping?

Is it wrong to hate Amalek? I don’t think so.

Last week, I apparently spoiled a nice hotel breakfast when I came down from my room delighted that, as I excitedly related to my children, Yasser Arafat would soon be dead.

“Mom, that’s disgusting,” Alex said, horrified.

“You’re kidding, right?” I asked.

“No!” he barked.

“I beg your pardon,” I said, taken aback by his moral outrage. “But I am really looking forward to living on the planet without him. I feel tremendously privileged to live in the generation in which Arafat dies.”

Alex threatened to leave the table. He was embarrassed for the waiters that his mother spoke so openly about want-ing someone dead.
“It’s Arafat!” I explained, “—the PLO murderer!” I might as well have said it was Shari Lewis and Lambchop — the outrage was the same.
I am currently taking a course for parents (given by my wiser friends) called “Picking Your Battles 101,” so I didn’t persist. But had I continued, I would have told Alexander that the origin of his popular, non-descript name was a series of PLO hijackings in the 1980s, where they specifically sought out and killed passengers with Israeli and Jewish sounding names.

OK — I’m wired. The death of Arafat has really set me off. Watching the world pay homage to the father of Israeli terror this past week was chilling. Realizing its moral compass is jammed on “I’m ok, you’re ok” frightened me. But seeing the inability of some Jews to condemn obvious evil continues to shock me.

Moral relativism is a luxury item, like political correctness and happy hour. It is not, however, something Jews can afford or indulge. We are only one generation removed from the Shoah, still wondering whether the State of Israel can survive the Muslim onslaught, still picking up the shredded pieces of Jewish bodies from buses, coffee shops, and pizzerias.

Are we filled with rage? We should be. Should we teach it to our children?

It is our obligation. Because there are people and events in this world which we, as Jews, are obliged to condemn. Rarely are we given a clear view of evil, cut like a diamond, with every facet distinct and gleaming: vicious anti-Semitism, unrepentant bloodlust, random murder, heartless desecration, wanton deceit — what’s not to hate?

Boruch Dayan Emes.

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Jews and Drama: A Match Made in Heaven

It crossed my mind the other evening when I was at an event with over 200 other Jewish women that Jewish people could not exist without the exclamation mark. Sure we could jettison the ellipsis, the comma, the period and perhaps the question mark (well maybe not), but the exclamation mark is a vital communication tool for both Jewish conversation and life.

I knew I was different from other children even as a young child. Unlike Shirley Temple’s parents, my folks did not channel my creative energies onto the stage; my mother just sent me to my room until I stopped crying. I think I was in there once for a year. When I got my hair done for my brother’s bar mitzvah and he teased me that it looked like a beehive, I hid in a neighbor’s bush and sobbed inconsolably thinking my performance would draw crowds from the neighborhood. The only one who showed up was my friend Robin’s dog Tasha.

Despite the lack of inspiration, I stayed true to my calling as a drama queen. A bad haircut would propel me to think of hurling myself in front of a car. A break up with a boyfriend would equate to oceans of tears, starvation or consumption of a box of Russell Stover chocolates. I watched the ladies in temple as their eyes opened wide with wonder as they mouthed “Oh my God!” and knew that I was connected to them in a deeply religious way.

Although my daughters and I have no formal training at Julliard, my husband Mitch agrees that we are worthy of Oscar nominations and possibly the coveted statue in the categories of Best Actress and Best Supporting Actresses in a Drama. He sometimes cleverly opts to skip our daily performances by turning off his phone or playing golf, but lucky for him, sequels run on a continuous loop.

I remember when our daughter Rachel was born our physician warned us,”Boy, is she going to be dramatic.” All the babies in the nursery were cooing and gurgling and guess who was wailing 24/7? Flash forward to elementary school when I was 20 seconds late for the classroom activity. Rachel’s friends were fanning her with their art projects, as the teacher was about to dial 911. On a scorching summer day at Kinderkamp, instead of asking for a drink of water, Emily fainted and told the counselor, “I just need some Chinese food.”

Jews have always been involved in every facet of theatrics. Even before Shakespeare created Shylock, Jews were appearing in dramas.

Perhaps our history has flooded our hearts and minds with such emotion that we need this venue to express our spectrum of feelings. And while life would be calmer and simpler without the drama, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

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Letters/Commentary

The Coming Crisis in Holocaust Remembrance

It is almost 60 years since the gates of the death camps opened and Holocaust survivors stumbled out to a Europe that lay in ruins. For the ensuing 60 years, the world has had Holocaust survivors as living witnesses to the barbaric war against the Jews.

But now we are in the twilight of the survivors. Soon most of them, in their 70s and 80s, will no longer be able to serve as reminders of the Holocaust. When they are gone, the embodiment of Holocaust remembrance goes with them. Their absence will cause a crisis in Holocaust remembrance.

Who will speak to future generations about the Holocaust with the same moral authority as survivors? No one but survivors, of course, can command audiences in quite the same way with their stories of suffering and perseverance. But the passing of the survivors increases the imperative that the lessons of the Holocaust are told not just for years, but for centuries to come. The greatest tribute that can be paid to the survivors is that their story — the tragedy of the Holocaust — be heeded for generations. But who will do it?

One obvious answer is the children of Holocaust survivors. Not all, but many of this following generation understand the need to tell the painful experiences of their parents. Also, there are students of the Holocaust who respond deeply to that catastrophe. Be it the scope of the tragedy, or an outraged sense of justice, they too have the need to bear witness to the Holocaust. And this is where the Jewish community must play a role.

Holocaust remembrance is now part of the Jewish tradition, and as part of that great tradition it must be studied, preserved and taught. The Jewish community has the solemn responsibility to make sure that it is passed on. We must support schools at all levels that have courses in Holocaust studies. Our institutions that foster Holocaust remembrance, such as the Holocaust Memorial in Boston, must have the resources to continue their work. Above all, it is the obligation of the Jewish community not to let the Holocaust become just a footnote to history.

Herbert Belkin
Swampscott

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